Lugano

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Virtuale Switzerland

Virtuale stands for Virtual Biennale and is a Festival for public space using new digital tools not only to view the artworks and to interact with them, but also to design the experience of participation itself. The program content for Virtuale focuses on the use of public space, mobile communication technologies, and explores the types of audiences found in public space, inventing “playful” new strategies to bring the public into the exhibit as “real” visitors being offered a unique experience. The project encompasses Artworks using Augmented Reality, Urban or Location Based Gaming, and Digital Heritage applications. It is interdisciplinary, bridging areas such as art and technology, digital heritage and tourism, as well as digital culture and art mediation.

The goal of the Virtuale to use publicly engaging art to add cultural flair to commercial business districts by placing digital creative accents, enliven and mark historical centres and niches around the city, and link hotspots with urban connectivity into a city-wide virtual arts space by placing select augmented reality artworks from acclaimed media artists and digital designers and to provide urban gaming works to engage with the city as a gaming platform and its populace as its avatars, inviting the public to explore the borders between the real and the virtual using their mobiles as a looking glass.

The Virtuale in Lugano

The Virtuale Switzerland for Lugano explores the characteristics of the city and its surroundings by placing virtual artworks at select points in the city. These accent and highlighting the city’s features while introducing an aesthetic dialog between the art of the today and the historical city of Lugano, which frames it in. Lugano’s lake known for its boat excursions from port to port, is transformed into a canvas for virtuale artworks, which thrive on its surface and embellish its ports with the witty and the unusual.